False Consciousness

I was writing in my journal today (non-digital version). And the idea that floated through my mind was this. I'm finding myself unhappy with my current life status, and in turn finding myself hoarding/acquiring possessions almost like they are badges of honor. I find myself wanting things, and then when I look at why I want it mostly it's for the asthetics. Then while looking up a phrase I wrote in my journal I find this website that lead me to another phrase.

False Consciousness.

Defined:

"The concept flows from the theory of commodity fetishism — that people experience social relationships as value relations between things, e.g., between the cash in their wage packet and the shirt they want. The cash and the shirt appear to conduct social relations independently of the humans involved, determining who gets what by their in-built values. This leaves the person who earned the cash and the people who made the shirt ignorant of and alienated from their social relationship with each other. So through the experiences of alienation and oppression the individual "resolves" this through the false need of materialistic goods."

It is a Marxist theory. One that underlines the basica alienation that people in a capitalistic society will experience. The idea behind why they will experience it is because money cannot create satisfcation within a person (in it's most basic definition). The definition more specifically draws out the relationship between the person who made the shirt and the person who buys the shirt as having some type of social exchange through money, whereby the money insulates the people from the social exchange leaving the person to feel that they need to resolve or fix this lack of exchange through more acquistions of goods.

I know anyone who reads this has had this experience. Think of the last time you felt down. If you thought about buying something, you suddenly felt uplifted. This temporary status gets you to buy something, until the next time you feel down, then you buy something again, and so on the pattern continues. Despite the fact that this obviously isn't a solution, if you view solutions as a resolution to a problem.

Imagine if you have malaria, a solution would be a cure. Not something that just made you feel better until the symptoms return. Isn't it amazing that we fail to see happiness in the same terms. We view our happiness as a term based phenomenon. I'm happy now because.... I'm unhappy now because... All happiness really boils down to is decisions. Everyday we all make decisions that determine our happiness. I'll do this, I hate it, but I'm going to do it anyway. I like this, but I don't have time. I'll do it next week.

And we all know next week means never.